This was one of those books that I was glad that was finally over, as it's my policy that I always finish books no matter what but this was a chore. I read this as an e-book with a page count of 433 pages. Good editing could easily have trimmed at least a 100 pages. As it is it feels very bloated, with too many characters and unnecessary back stories for minor ones. A thriller with very little thrills or action. It just went on and on. There is an expanded version with 200 hundred extra pages!(yikes!!!!). As I said could easily have been an interesting, taut thriller with editing. I give a 2 star rating not a 1 star rating because the premise was interesting and the writing was good. ( )

A new slant on a computer virus. ( )

Wow, what a crazy and unique concept. A super-selective small liberal arts college receives a variety of threats from a group of students who were not accepted. Are these students already on campus? What did the school president do that was so bad? What will the big finale be? These questions and more were all running through my mind throughout most of the novel and while some were answered just over a third of the way into the book, others were not answered until the very end. I was really impressed with Flynn's ability to carry out a thriller in which the main characters were truly fleshed out people the reader actually cared about...or in Dula's case, really hated! Despite the book's frightening cover art, this novel is mostly quite light hearted in a sense, although the emotions felt by the rejected students are certainly palpable. There is a sub-plot that threw me off for a while, but as the book progressed, I saw why it was a necessary part of the story. The only criticism I have is that the chapters are WAY too long at times, but maybe that's just me. When chapters are shorter I find it much easier to get hooked into a book thinking, "Oh I'll just read one more chapter." But with some of these chapters being some 30 or more pages long, that wasn't really possible. Regardless though, it still managed to be quite a page turner most of the time.

Check out my full review at
http://knittylove.blogspot.com/2012/03/3ish-book-reviews-education-trade.html ( )